


Control Me, Console Me

by rabidchild67



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Bondage, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 21:21:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2203506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidchild67/pseuds/rabidchild67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aftercare following an intense scene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Control Me, Console Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Chris Pine's Birthday Bash. Happy Day, Pie (please, please, please don't ever read this).
> 
> Title is a lyric from the song "Narc" by Interpol.

_”Chris?_

_Baby, are you back?_

_Come back._

_Come back to me.”_

When Chris finally opens his eyes, the light in the room is soft, diffuse. It makes everything seem filtered somehow. The fact he’s not wearing his contact lenses heightens the effect. He coughs.

“Do you want some water?”

The words seem to surround him and he realizes he’s in Zach’s arms, recumbent, against his chest. A cup is pressed to his lips and he opens them, sipping. The water is cool but not cold, perfect for his thirst. Zach pulls it away before he thinks he’s had enough.

“Not too fast. I’ll give you more in a minute.”

Chris sighs, accepting it. He shifts his weight, but his limbs are like lead weights, and it’s difficult. 

“Your arms will feel like limp noodles for a while.” Zach is always so good at anticipating. “It’s because they were held in one position for so long. It’s normal. Do you want a massage?”

Chris thinks he shakes his head. 

“Do you think you want to sleep?”

He shakes his head again. His vision blurs and now his face is wet. Had he spilled the water? Someone is crying.

“Shh, baby, it’s OK. I love you and it’s OK.”

Zach’s arms tighten around him, and Chris’s head is tucked beneath his lover’s chin. He stiffens against Zach for only a second before he relaxes.

“It’s OK to cry, that happens. Right?” his voice sounds too high as he presses a kiss against Chris’s temple, the corner of his eye. “Just ride it out, go ahead. I’ve got you.” Zach’s hands are petting Chris, his lips pressed against his ear. “You were so good, So beautiful and so good.”

_So good._

\----

Chris wakes, shivering, pushes the covers back, and scrambles out of the bed.

“Babe?”

“Gotta piss.”

His legs are unsure as he moves toward the bathroom, his toes dragging on the carpet. He thanks whatever design quirk made them put the wall so close to the toilet because he has to lean against it with his shoulder, heavily. He’s not sure if he’d be able to get back up again if he sat down. He’s positive he misses the toilet once or twice.

He flushes, goes to wash his hands. There’s just enough light in the room for him to catch a glimpse of himself. Curious, he switches the light on. It is too bright, punishing almost, and he squints against it. It takes several moments for him to think to reach for his glasses; his brain is still a little buzzy, still slow. 

“Oh,” he says when he finally focuses on his reflection.

Most of the rope marks have already faded – he had hoped to catch a glimpse. There are some burns though, angry and red crisscrosses on his chest and arms. But no impressions of the rope remain, no fibers. He’s a little disappointed not to have seen them, but he had been so far gone in sub space, and that was always preferable. 

And then he sees them, the marks the knots left, red and puffy. He looks down at his arms as if the reflection could lie. He’s momentarily confused by them, touches one as in a daze.

“Ouch.”

It’s perhaps five minutes later when he shuts off the light and stumbles back to bed.

“Chris? Everything all right/” Zach’s voice is scratchy, concerned.

“I’m cold.” 

He crawls back under the covers and back into the waiting arms of his lover.

\----

When Chris next wakes, the sun is up, bathing the room in clear light. He feels uncharacteristically light and euphoric for so early in the morning. The windows are open, curtains billow from a light breeze off the Pacific. He draws in a deep breath and pushes himself to a seated position. 

The soreness in his arms reminds him of the night before, the jute ropes initially soft yet ultimately so punishing, and he looks down. The rope impressions are gone, he remembers. As he looks closer though, as he squints, he can make out the irregularly rounded, dark red marks running in a line down the inside of his right forearm; there is a matching set on his left, another crisscrossing his chest. He touches one and remembers. He hisses – it is tender to the touch.

“Rosebuds.”

Chris looks up and sees Zach standing in the doorway, carrying a tray. The expression on his face is carefully neutral, which Chris knows means he’s feeling a lack of confidence. So he smiles.

“They’re beautiful, Zach.”

“You think so?”

“Exactly like little rosebuds, just like you said.” 

Zach had been planning and designing the patterns he would use with the ropes for weeks, testing some things out on Chris, some on himself. Chris knew better than to have asked him what it all was for as he experimented – not because he feared Zach’s reaction, but because he did not want to ruin the surprise. Zach is endlessly inventive.

“It’s really OK?”

Chris thinks about the night before, the long process of being bound, the exquisite pleasure-pain when Zach had finally hoisted him off the ground, his body’s weight putting stress on the knots, leaving the marks, the pull of the thin ropes on his balls. He moves his hand down there to feel almost without looking.

Zach’s eyes follow the movement and his face becomes blanker. 

“Better than I ever expected,” Chris says truthfully.

Zach’s face softens, as does his posture, and he enters the room with his tray. He sets it on the nightstand and settles down on one knee on the bed. Chris reaches for his glasses so he can see. On the tray are the usual gels and ointments for Chris, and something new. “Baby powder?”

“It’s mostly cornstarch, but yeah. For the, um, chafing. I thought it might feel nice.”

It’s Chris’s turn to try to keep his face neutral and he mostly fails. 

“You don’t have to if you don’t want.”

“Sorry, it’s just the idea of you powdering my bottom –“

“What, that’s not hot?” Zach interrupts and then they’re both laughing. “You’re right, that’s way weird.”

“Weirder than you trussing me up like a Thanksgiving turkey and suspending me from a beam in the ceiling?”

“Yes?”

They dissolve into giggles again, and then Zach reaches for a tube of lotion that he begins to massage into the welts on Chris’s arms. “How do you feel?”

“My shoulders are still a little sore. I don’t think I’ll be lifting weights for a couple of days.”

Zach gets quiet again and Chris lets it be. He should have known better than to say it, but he’s sometimes too honest after a scene, and Zach is sometimes too touchy. Instead he leans forward to kiss Zach, misses when Zach turns to grab another item from the tray, and winds up mashing his nose against his lover’s shoulder. 

“Ow.” His eyes tear up immediately and he’s blinking like an idiot.

“Sorry! What happened?”

“Nothig, I was dryig to giss you,” Chris says nasally, rubbing his nose gently. 

Zach turns and cradles his face in his hands, pressing their foreheads together. “Then kiss me.”

\----

“What’s all this?” Chris pads into the kitchen to find that the refrigerator has apparently disgorged all of its contents onto the stove, and Zach is standing in the middle of it all. Every skillet they own is in use, there are fresh baked muffins cooling on the counter, and the coffee is already brewed. 

“Breakfast,” Zach says proudly, turning away from the stove. He holds a plate on which is piled fried bacon, slices of ham, and breakfast sausage. In another pan, at least half a dozen eggs are frying.

“All the breakfast,” Chris says. He goes to pour himself a cup of coffee and Zach forestalls him, jands on his shoulders. “You sit – I’ll bring it.” He shoos Chris over toward the table and then fixes the coffee – light and sweet just as Chris likes it, and he even lets Chris have the apple green Starbucks mug. Chris sits down gingerly at the table, happy he’d opted to apply the baby powder/cornstarch after all. 

“Butter or jam on your toast?” Zach asks, setting the coffee down in front of him.

“Both?”

“Strawberry, grape, or blackberry?”

“What, no red currant?” When Zach’s face falls, Chris immediately regrets the joke. “I’m kidding – grape is fine.”

A few minutes later, Zach brings everything to the table – it takes him three trips – and Chris reaches for the plate of breakfast meats. 

“I’ve got it,” Zach says, taking Chris’s plate and filling it with some of everything.

“It all looks so good,” Chris says evenly. 

Zach gets up suddenly. “I forgot the ketchup!” He’s back in moments, and deposits a dollop of it atop Chris’s hash browns. “I think that’s everything.”

“It is. Zach, it’s literally _everything_. All my favorites – you even made waffles and I didn’t even know we had a waffle iron.”

“I borrowed one from Joe.”

Chris takes a breath and for once thinks before he speaks. “You know you don’t always have to spoil me like this.”

Zach lowers his eyes, his lashes leaving long shadows across his cheeks. “No. Yeah. I kind of _do_ though.” When he looks up at Chris, his eyes are soft and sad and filled with insecurity.

Chris quietly stares at his plate. “Are those fresh strawberries?” he asks a moment later, his voice bright.

“Yes!” Zach says proudly. “I got them at Whole Foods yesterday!”

\----

“Can’t I help you do the dishes at least?” Chris asks after breakfast. 

“You know I like to clean,” Zach says dismissively.

Chris doesn’t know, but he lets it drop. 

They hang out on the couch and watch football even if Zach hates it, and Chris falls asleep halfway through the second quarter. When he wakes, Zach is in the kitchen again, making his mother’s Sunday sauce. “You need something?” he asks Chris when he goes to investigate.

“Just some water.”

“I’ll get it.”

“I can get it.”

“I know,” he says lightly but then there’s ice and Pellegrino and a slice of lemon in a glass and Chris stands there and watches Zach’s back as he forms meatballs and puts them in a frying pan. He leaves his water on the table and goes to the stove, shoving his hands into Zach’s back pockets and squeezing his ass. “You’re too good to me,” he murmurs as he rests his chin on Zach’s shoulder.

“Only sometimes,” he says and grabs the tongs.

\----

Dinner is delicious as usual – there is enough of it to feed twenty – and they play a quiet game of Scrabble Chris is certain Zach lets him win. When his eyes are drooping by 9:00, Zach leads him to the bedroom by his hand, and Chris goes. He showers and then Zach applies more ointments and gels, and he’s surprisingly awake and alert at the end of it, despite feeling physically exhausted. He reaches for Zach, a hand between his thighs, but Zach squirms away. 

“Let me,” he says, not waiting for a response before he’s got Chris’s cock in his mouth and treats him to the gentlest blowjob ever.

Chris falls asleep less than a minute after he comes.

\----

He’s not sure what time it is when he wakes, but the bed is empty beside him, and the bedroom door is open. Chris slips on a robe and walks out into the living room. He sees nothing until the dull red of a cigarette out on the terrace catches his attention. 

“How long you been out here?” he asks, dropping the chenille throw he grabbed from the couch around Zach’s shoulders. 

Zach exhales. “Not long.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I’m exhausted and keyed up all at once.”

“Don’t you know?” Zach stares up at him from the loveseat he’s sitting on, perched on the edge of it with his knees clutched to his chest. Chris pushes on his shoulder to make him move over and sits down sideways on his foot at the other end, facing him. “That was some pretty intense stuff we did last night – you sure you don’t know?”

“It’s not that – it’s not like that for me. I’m the one in control, I have to be.” 

“It’s OK to admit it, you know.” He takes the cigarette out of Zach’s hand and takes a drag.

“I don’t have a problem admitting it, it just doesn’t happen to me.” He finds the pack and fumbles for another one for himself.

“And I think we have this conversation or something like it every time we do something like that. It’s OK to feel vulnerable afterwards.” Chris hands him the cig back – better to share than to let him smoke another.

Zach stares at it. “I don’t.”

“You do and you won’t admit it. Or you can’t.”

“It’s not like that.”

Chris gives him his _you’re wrong and I’m right_ raised eyebrows look, to which Zach responds with an _you don’t know what you’re talking about_ hand wave and scowl.

“Maybe you should just humor me.”

“Maybe you should just shut the fuck up!”

Both their eyebrows shoot up, shocked.

“I’m sorry, I didn't mean that,” Zach says immediately.

“No, I think you did.”

“Chris, please.”

“I got to you.”

“You didn't.”

“I did, or else I got close to something you don’t want me to know.”

Zach looks away.

“I did.”

“Congratulations, it’s the one you get all year,” Zach says bitterly, throwing the cigarette onto the pavers and fumbling to light another.

Chris ignores his words and his tone, too keen now to prove his point. He leans forward after a sudden insight. “You feel guilty after.” 

“I don’t, I –“ Zach’s eyes flick to Chris’s and he sees he’s got it now. “ _I don’t_.” He takes a drag on the cigarette and closes his eyes. “It’s consensual. We both get what we need,” he says as if by rote.

“But one of us isn’t getting everything he needs, is he?” Chris says simply, pouring as much sincerity into the words as he can muster. He reaches out and takes Zach’s bicep in his hand. “Come here.” 

Zach leans away, trying to dislodge Chris’s hand. “No.”

“Come _here,_ ” Chris repeats, squeezing his hand and pulling, hard. He overestimates Zach’s balance on the edge of the loveseat and the man topples over, falling awkwardly into Chris. “There, isn’t that nice?” Chris mutters wryly as he struggles to right them, pulling Zach atop himself awkwardly.

“You are such a fucking asshole,” Zach says into his stomach.

“And you’re an intractable _child_ , but I love you anyway. Now humor me and get over here, it’s my turn to be the comforting presence, god damn it.”

They both laugh at that, but Zach pushes up on hands and knees and settles himself against Chris, arms around his torso and head on Chris’s chest. They lean back against the side of the love seat together, though it’s too small for them to really stretch out. Chris settles his knees against Zach’s sides.

“There, isn’t that nice?”

“Not really.”

“Just relax.”

Chris settles in some more, arms loosely around Zach’s shoulders. He watches the waves of the ocean as he feels Zach gradually relax in his arms.

“No matter what happens, I’m not going anywhere. You know that, right?” Chris says after a very long time.

Zach clutches at him suddenly and takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I know.”

One of these days, Chris is sure, Zach will believe him.

\----

Thank you for your time.


End file.
